Chelsea manager Rafael Benitez insists the club needs to replace the old guard

Rafael Benítez has given the clearest signal yet that Chelsea’s old guard will
be jettisoned as he praised the club’s “legends” for their service but
insisted that new blood was essential to bring more silverware to Stamford
Bridge.

Swansong triumph? Chelsea celebrate winning the Champions League but several of that team could soon be soldPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

Roman Abramovich, the club’s owner, is committed to attracting a new generation of talent as he searches for a style that is both progressive and successful. That process that will involve dismantling the last season’s Champions League-winning team, many of whom joined the club under Jose Mourinho.

Frank Lampard is the first guaranteed casualty, with his agent confirming at the weekend that he had been told that Lampard would not be offered a new contract when his deal expired at the end of the season.

The clear-out looks likely to claim Ashley Cole, also in the last year of his contract. John Terry and Petr Cech are also set to find their futures closely scrutinised as they approach the end of their deals.

Between them the quartet have played more than 1,700 games for Chelsea, but Benítez said that they had to accept a new generation of players was required to carry the club forward.

The Spaniard is only the interim manager at Stamford Bridge and has limited input into transfer dealings, but he is close enough to the hierarchy to know that Abramovich is committed to change.

“It’s easy to talk about the legends, and you have to have a lot of respect for them,” Benítez said. “What they’ve achieved for this club has been fantastic. But you have to have new players, English or foreign, it doesn’t matter, and carry on winning games.

“That’s what the fans are expecting. Everyone knows the legends have been here and what they have achieved, but you have to see new players coming. It’s part of life.”

Speaking on the eve of the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final against Swansea, which could offer Benítez a route to his first trophy as Chelsea manager, he added that the club was determined to evolve.

“I cannot talk about the past, but I can see the club is changing things for the future, thinking about being successful again. It’s not just: ‘Oh, we won,’ and that’s it,” he said.

“You have to keep winning as much as you can, you can’t think, ‘That’s it, we’ve won now’. You have to keep evolving. That means you have to keep bringing in good new players.

“If you want to keep winning, to have the winning mentality, you need the new generation pushing you. Chelsea are managing this situation because they were successful.

“Every year you have to bring in someone else. The English question is something you have to consider, but this year you have three or four players, you have Hazard, Oscar, Piazon and Marin who came last summer, and they will need some time. That is part of the evolution of the team.”

While Abramovich and his advisers consider the medium term, Benítez’s is preoccupied with winning something in the five months remaining on his contract, starting with the Capital One Cup.

After a breathless and unpopular start to his tenure, which has prompted boos from Chelsea fans and defeat in the Club World Cup final, January offers winnable fixtures, a squad strengthened by Demba Ba and potential deals involving Metalist Kharkiv’s Brazilian midfielder Taison and Corinthians’ Paulinho.

Benítez believes that Ba’s arrival will help to revive Fernando Torres, and will offer the Spanish striker a much-needed break having been effectively the club’s only trusted centre-forward this season.

“It will be positive for both,” he said. “They will be fitter. They will have more chances and be in better positions. They know they’ll have a lot of games and will have a big part to play.”

Having lost the 2005 League Cup final as Liverpool manager to Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, Benítez is keen on a return to the showpiece game, but admitted that Swansea present stiff opposition.

Meanwhile, Terry will continue his recovery from a knee injury by turning out for Chelsea’s development team against Fulham on Thursday. The game will be Terry’s first competitive action since Nov 11. A return to the first-team squad could be at least a week away. Cech could return from a groin injury within a fortnight.